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October 08, 2012

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Yesterday, as I have every Sunday for all of my adult life, I received a phone call from my parents. Usually the conversation follows a strict outline:

"How are you?"
"Good. How are you guys?"
"Also good."
"So what'd you do this week?"

Etc etc.

But this week I was hit a surprisingly vexing question from my Dad: "Did the Bills play today?"

(If you're new around here: Due to unfortunate life decisions, I am a Buffalo Bills fan.)

Now, this should not be a difficult question to answer as I had just watched them face the 49ers. But if you witnessed the monstrosity that was the San Francisco rout of Buffalo, you know that it's actually a complicated one. My response to my father's benign and well-meaning question:

"Well, technically they had a game scheduled. But I wouldn't say they 'played.'"

Playing a game entails sending out your team with the intention to win. With a gameplan in tact. With players ready to compete. Playing a game does not entail running around in circles yelling "blow the whistle" at the refs until you're tackled 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

Yes, as many of you probably know (depending on what movies you watched in the 90s), that is a scene from the classic Sinbad/Scott Bakula vehicle, "Necessary Roughness": a star-studded film that in no way should resemble real-life.

But alas it did. And after the Bills sent replacement players onto the field in San Francisco, I seriously debated giving up football forever and the day ended with me ignoring the Sunday night game in favor of watching the movie "Your Sister's Sister," which despite being an understated, yet powerful, film, was not the movie adaptation of this:

Which is what I was led to believe it would be, based on its title.

Okay. I'll stop this super depressing intro the recap and get to more light-hearted NFL news. Like what, you ask? Who knows! Let's take a look at what else happened around the league.

First stop: Baltimore and Kansas City! The Ravens offense has been on fire recently with Flacco running an uptempo attack and guys like Ray Rice and Torrey Smith exploiting defenses' weakness. I bet it was a very high scoring game in KC and they scored all of the touchdowns!

Wait, what? 9-6. All field goals. Okay, at least we got to see Bro4Life and Subway spokesman, Brady Quinn, make an appearance.

Oh, also the K.C. fans cheered when Matt Cassel went down with a concussion. Awesome. Cool life decisions, Kansas City. I think my favorite part was when you celebrated that a man injured his brain and consequently will live a shorter life because he tried to entertain you. I can't wait for next week when he tries to return too early because he wants to help his team win and you decide his fate!!!!!

Here's you:

Speaking of players rushing back from life-threatening injuries…good news! The Tom Brady/Peyton Manning rivalry is back. The Patriots completely controlled this game, downing the Broncos 31-21. More importantly, this happened:

Why is that standoff good news? Because it marks the official return of Manning Face. Let's make up for lost time, shall we?

Good to have you back. And the reverse angle:

While we're at it, let's take a look at Peyton's successor in Indy, Andrew Luck, who led a dramatic comeback victory over actor Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. Luck's play has shown why the Colts took him first overall. Not only that, but he's grabbed the torch from Manning in the face department; his, however, is that of the prankster you knew in college but hasn't since learned to control himself in the real world.

Continuing on the theme of faces, this is what Philip Rivers used to look like:

Aw. So young. So derpy. But now that he's matured and established himself as a veteran leader, he now looks like this:

Anyway, the Saints beat the Chargers and Brees did something record-breaking but has a normal face so it has no reason to be discussed in this forum.

A couple weeks ago, a few commenters asked that I talk about the Bengals since I don't mention them too often. Fair enough. Here is my assessment of their team: decent QB aided by one of the best WRs in the game who makes everyone around him look good. Even the Dolphins who are actually not bad? I didn't see that coming. Perhaps it's because I stopped watching "Hard Knocks" after they killed off their best character or perhaps it's because they're defense is legit. We'll never know.

That's it. Here's a quick rundown of everything else.

Giants dominated the Browns, with Eli Manning playing fired up after hearing Big Bird may no longer be on TV.

Percy Harvin is very good at football. And now the Vikings are 4-1.

2 Ex-Cons faced off in Pittsburgh. One couldn't hold on to his slippery balls.

Remember Cam Newton? Good times.

Other stuff, whatever.

Sorry, still a little down-trodden about the Bills. But at least there's this: